Theolog

The sacramental divide

By David Heim

I’ve been doing some chaplaincy work in a hospital, and have been struck by this difference between the patients: When you ask a Protestant patient what you can do for him, he’s likely to say, “You can pray for me.” Ask a Catholic and she’s likely to say, “I’d like to have communion.”

No big surprise there, perhaps. But it’s still interesting in light of the fact that Lutherans and Episcopalians and other non-Roman Catholics often think of themselves as a sacramental people who believe Christ is mediated through the sacraments in a special, objective way.

Blogging toward Sunday

By Nanette Sawyer
Genesis 1:1-2:4
Sunday, May 18

When I was a boy

Biblical language about God often reflects the patriarchal cultures in which that language was crafted, but every once in a while we get a glimpse of a God who transcends male identity. In Isaiah, God comforts us like a nursing mother comforts her child. Jesus said that he wished to gather up the people of Jerusalem like a mother hen gathers up her chicks. In Proverbs, God gives birth to wisdom before manifesting creation.

American idol worship

By Kate Walker

I had always thought of the song “Shout to the Lord" as a bit hackneyed, but not offensive. Until, that is, my roommate and I stumbled across a performance of it on American Idol. What was disturbing was the context. Eight bright-faced young American Idol finalists were singing "Shout to the Lord" with full voice and earnest expressions.

Great is thy faithfulness?

By Debra Bendis

A few days ago I called a 15-year church member and friend whom I haven’t seen for 4 or 6 months—in church or elsewhere. I’ve canoed with this woman on church women’s outings, sat with her countless times in worship and laughed with her at congregational meals. I missed her, and was becoming concerned. I also hoped that she wasn’t doing a slow membership fade. Her response, after reassuring me that all was well, went something like this: “Lately I’ve found that larger groups just don’t seem to fit me. I’m in some smaller [nonchurch] groups: a book club. . .”

Blogging toward Sunday

By Nanette Sawyer
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost Sunday, May 11

Euphoric with hope

A pastor was having a difficult time reading the book of Acts because she kept thinking about the imperial context in which it is set. How is her/our understanding of the story changed if we keep in mind that Jerusalem falls well within the bounds of the Roman Empire?

When the disciples ask Jesus, “Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6), we remember that Jesus’ Jewish followers were longing for a time of self-rule and religious-cultural freedom. Given this reality, it makes sense that Peter interprets the events of Pentecost in terms of the prophet Joel.

Tending to two vineyards

By Bob Cornwall

Perhaps it’s because I’ve received a call that will take me away from southern California’s wine country—but I’ve found myself meditating on the biblical image of the vineyard. I live in one of the nation’s great wine-making regions, made famous by that quirky comedy, Sideways.

Quarters for the captives

By Jason Byassee

After a recent visit to New Brunswick Correctional Center in Lawrenceville, Virginia, I was confused about exit protocol and asked my inmate-friend how to get out. “Sorry,” he joked, “I’ve had no luck getting out of this place.” He went through his door and back to year 23 of his incarceration. Then security guards opened a different sliding steal gate for me, checked to see if I still had the ultraviolet stamp the guard gave me when I came in, slid open another blast door, and I was free.

I’d been carefully prepped. Don’t wear blue jeans, they said.

Blogging toward Sunday

By Nanette Sawyer
Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53
Sunday, May 4

Cloud Rider

After Jesus has been taken up in a cloud , the “men in white” convey a message of hope to the disciples: this Cloud Rider will return in the same way they saw him go. The cloud that carried Jesus away was the power and presence of God, the Ancient of Days. It is a powerful metaphor for God, and reminds us of other metaphors, and other encounters.

Faith "extras"

By Matthew Phillips

Recently I held my newborn child for the first time. I gave thanks for the love his mother and I share and asked for the grace to show that love to him. Then my thoughts turned to the things my wife and I will teach him, and in particular, to our Christian faith.

We hear often now about public schools having to cut out offerings in the arts and languages because of finances or in order to teach to a test. What about his Christian education?

Body and soul

By Zach Kincaid

A CBS story on regenerative medicine reports on a man who, after losing the tip of his finger in a work accident, sprinkled on the wound a powdery substance made from pig intestines. The finger grew back in four weeks. The scientists now believe they can trick the body to repair itself instead of nubbing off serious injury. They hope the technology can one day reproduce skin cells and whole limbs, blood vessels and complete organs. Wearing out may be optional in the future.

Blogging toward Sunday

By Nanette Sawyer
Acts 17:22-31
Sunday, April 27

A majestic intimate God

In his speech at the Areopagus Paul proclaims:

God is the creator of everything.

God is not limited by (does not live in) human-made things.

God does not need anything from human beings.

Humans all come from one ancestor (or one blood) and are all God’s offspring.

God is the matrix of existence—in whom “we live and move and have our being.” These things together present a very majestic idea of God as powerful and all-pervasive.

Bourne baptism

By Jonathan Marlowe

The Bourne movie trilogy begins in water, with the motionless body of Jason Bourne floating in the Mediterranean Sea. When Jason is rescued, he has no memory of who he is, but it soon becomes clear that he has the skills of a CIA-trained assassin. He comes out of the water alive, but his memory and identify have been lost.

Religion on the brain

By Amy Frykholm

Nina Azari has been looking at the brains of religious people. Azari is a neuroscientist at the University of Hawaii who is working on a doctorate in theology at Illiff Seminary in Denver. She wants to find out what human brains do when engaged in religious activity. In its March 19 issue, The Economist reports on her scientific experiment:

[Azari] used positron emission tomography (PET) to measure brain activity in six fundamentalist Christians and six non-religious (though not atheist) controls. The Christians all said that reciting the first verse of the 23rd psalm helped them enter a religious state of mind, so both groups were scanned in six different sets of circumstances: while reading the first verse of the 23rd psalm, while reciting it out loud, while reading a happy story (a well-known German children's rhyme), while reciting that story out loud, while reading a neutral text (how to use a calling card) and while at rest.

Blogging toward Sunday

By Nanette Sawyer
John 14: 1-14
Sunday, April 20

How do I love thee?

How Do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways.

The story this week from the Gospel of John is an intimate tale of fidelity, commitment and trust. In the midst of feelings of abandonment, betrayal, grief and fear, Jesus comforts his disciples. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says to them.

Broken for you

By Sarah S. Howell

For the third year running, I spent my spring break at Christ in the Desert, a Benedictine monastery in New Mexico. The monks’ hospitality is unparalleled, the mesas of the high desert backdrop are breathtaking, and the peace and calm provided is a rare and precious treasure.

These monks are not afraid to use modern innovations within the reason and limits of the Benedictine Rule; their website makes that clear. On my first visit, a reality TV show was being filmed at the monastery. TLC’s The Monastery chronicled the lives of five men who spent 40 days living and working with the monks of Christ in the Desert. (See the show’s website here).

Rummaging

By Bromleigh McCleneghan

With the coming of spring, as we throw open church doors and windows to allow fresh air into our buildings and lives, we arrive once more in the season most likely to create distress and conflict: Rummage Sale Season.

Our church basement is full of junk, rummage that began accumulating several years ago (before my arrival, thank you) in closets and back hallways, but has now taken on one of a scientific property of a liquid: filling any space not already filled with something else.

Blogging toward Sunday

By Craig Kocher
John 10:1-10
April 13, 2008

Who Then Can Be Saved?

Is Jesus the only way? Is Jesus the one gate of eternal life? Will all be saved? How are Christians to relate to people of other traditions?

As a college chaplain and director of religious life at a research university, I recognize these questions as the cerebral fiber of dorm-room conversations and as very real responses to the “I’ve-never-met-a-Muslim-before,” encounters of modern life. Many Christians ponder these questions as they live near or work with a person of a different faith. This Sunday’s Gospel lesson about Jesus being the shepherd of the sheep and the gate through which the sheep pass into eternal life is a perfect opportunity. Here are some suggestions about how one might handle these tricky questions:

Downfall

By Lou Carlozo

The downfall of New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer hit me hard. If Spitzer—a man idolized for rooting out corruption as New York’s attorney general—blew thousands of dollars on a prostitute, then whom can we trust?

He not only wrecked his political career, but shattered the trust of those closest to him—his aides, loyalists, supporters and most importantly, his wife and three teenage daughters. Nor did it bode well that this man of seemingly firm moral conscience apparently engaged in sex with a formerly homeless girl who used the trade to get back on her feet. The drama of his downfall has a Shakespearean scope.

New light on old parables

By Kenneth H. Carter, Jr.

Imagine that Hillary Clinton is the older sibling in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. She has been there all along, working hard, as she continually reminds us. No one has thrown her a party. The youngest son returns, from the far country. Everyone rejoices, and the crowds celebrate. But she will not join in the fun; she will have none of it. The father, appeals to her, "We have to celebrate, for we were lost, and now we are on the way to being a family again."

Blogging toward Sunday

By Craig Kocher
Luke 24:13-35
April 6, 2008, Easter 2

Practice Resurrection*

I remember a student who came to Duke Chapel the first Sunday of his freshman year. He had recently completed the Walk to Emmaus spiritual renewal program and, in his words, was “on fire for Christ.” Luke 24 has that effect on people. It is among the most treasured chapters in the Gospels and may be the most recognized story of Jesus’ post-Easter appearances.